Very old elevators, still in original form
 

Years ago (2004 or 2005), when I worked as a courier on bicycle I had the chance to ride an vintage elevator. Very small one, 2 persons only. Most pre-communist apartament (flat) buildings in Bucharest had 3 persons elevator (lifts), some 2 persons and very rare 4 persons elevators (I lived up untill age of 5 in one, but the elevator isn't the original one... do know about the "service" elevator). Well, the elevator was original because it moved slowly, even slower then the 1963 elevators. And old man told me that the elevator was original. I coulnd't be 100% procent original, because in the '60's or early '70's the enegine was switched from 208 Volts to 380 Volts - in Bucharest, when that bulding was constructed, the voltage was 208/120 Volts, not 380/220 Volts - only outiside the city (excepting Băneasa, now part of Bucharest) they introduced 380/220 Volts from the begining.
The elevator dosen't works nowdays...
Oh, this elevator was installed or bought probably by some brothers wo today would have a quite obscene name (no joke).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn1udxxbzDU&t=21s

Here is an "Otis". Yes, the famous company. Too bad that the calling panel (do you have in English the expression "calling the elevator" are not originals, beeing replaced in the '60's probably. But the sign of the company put down... wow!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6WT...YXJhZ2lhbGU%3D

Some of the 3 stories (floors) buldings from before 1947-1948 had also elevators. But the space between the floor and the celling was bigger, about 2.8 - 3 meters... some coomie blocks (apartament buldings built during communism) do have 2,7-2,8 meters in room height, but most 2,5 and sometimes 2,6. Durring communism usually only 5 stories and above apartament buldings had elevators installed, so most 3-4 stories apartament bulding from after 1946-1948 do NOT have elevators. Here is a nice prewar one with and original elevator. Oh, the bulding haves an modernistic Art-Deco exterior, but inside is quite more of the '20's then the '30's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUN7f0fwBqk

Not more then 200 yards away, is another original one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLjv_9zBV4w&t=241s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2n9...5lYXNjYQ%3D%3D

And not too far away (probabil less the 2 kilomters - a mile an abuot 1/4), in a bulding made by a famous Romanian architect, Horia Creangă, the nephew of the writer Ion Creangă, another one.
"Brown, Bovery und Cie." had durring communism the offices on the same adress from the panel.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mfUG0MTFYfU

And at the end, one of those installed by those brothers. This one, I discovered it before the boy who films them, in a real estate add. I was amazed that is working, because new regulations...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3E_m...9zaWxvcg%3D%3D


If you know old elevators, which still have the original buttons, beside the original cabin, maybe you post images of them here. :scratch2:

In the states, the Victor Hotel in Victor, Colorado (west of Colorado Springs) still has a 1900 Otis elevator running and visitors are encouraged to take a ride. You do not have to be a guest to enjoy. Victor, Colorado was a gold mining town but is now a tourist attraction. Very old west Colorado. I have my own photos but I have to learn the new photo limits so here is the gallery page from the Victor Hotel. You can see it all here.

https://www.victorhotelcolorado.com/gallery.cfm

Intresting. In U.S.A. you seem to have an interest to preserve more recent induistrial/technical stuff in old buldings.
I will look for more old elevators in Bucharest.

Can't say I've been in any buildings which still had working 'antique' elevators, at least anywhere near as old as the one in the Victor Hotel. Closest thing I can think of is at one of the buildings at a college I attended, which had a single person (I think) elevator which I never got to ride in because it was restricted to use by handicapped people only. It had a regular-looking door on the front with a window and a locking doorknob on it, plus a lock next to the door for the controls. The light was always off, except for perhaps one brief instance where I walked by it and it was being worked on, but I couldn't see much. Guessing it was of the birdcage type, but again, I never really got to see inside of it, much less use it.

As far as elevators I've used goes, the closest I can think of is another college building, which had two older elevators for general use. Both were of different types; one had a modern style split door, though I'm pretty sure it had a mechanical blockage sensor bar instead of a modern optical type. It was very slow and creaky, and I didn't like using it for fear that it would break down, which it eventually did and was inoperable for my entire senior year. The other one, which was much quicker, just had a single sliding door with the same sort of mechanical sensor bar, which took a decent amount of force to activate. Also, unlike every other elevator I've used, the "DOOR OPEN" and "DOOR CLOSE" buttons actually did something, instead of being there purely for placebo effect. I liked it because if I was late for class and nobody else was approaching the doors, I'd hop in, press the DOOR CLOSE button, that big single door would quickly slide shut, and the car would start moving. Pretty sure neither elevator had been inspected in years, and I have a feeling they've been modernized in the nearly 20 years since I attended that school.

OP, have you ever had experience with a paternoster lift? I understand those are more common in Europe than they ever were in the States, if any were ever installed here. Seems like a rather dangerous concept to me. :yikes:
-Adam

Whats the fastest elevator any of you have been in???

Did you know that in New York City the electric utility supplied DC power to the old warehouse district until 2007 so those businesses could operate their old DC elevators?

Very cool!! If all elevators had this handy feature WORKING hehe :D

My boss from one job I was in late 2000's commented to me about these DC lines (he travelled to NY on early 2000's).

I worked at a coffee shop that was linked to a day program that was for people with disabilities that was on the main floor of an 1880s vintage "skyscraper" (5-story building) in downtown Goshen, Indiana that when it was built it was originally a hardware store on the main floor and the 4 floors above were offices for the telephone company (think telephone billing and switchboard offices), and electric company offices, and the basement was storage/warehouse space for the hardware store, and also some bathrooms at one time, anyways the building had its original elevator in it yet.
I believe it was a 2 occupant cage type elevator with an old wooden door with an old mortise lock on it and an old plateglass window, and the controls for the elevator was an old lever switch that activated the motor that would drive the elevator between floors and whichever floor you needed to go to you would pull the lever to shut the elevator off and the amount of time it needed to brake the motor and shut the motor down would be enough time to get you to the opening to the floor you needed.
You would essentially pull the lever about halfway between the floor you started off at and the floor you needed to go to, which usually would of been say the first floor and the second floor, or the second floor and the third floor, etc., or if you needed to go more than one floor up or down you would go the amount of floors you needed to go up or down, and once you got close to the floor you needed to go to, you would pull the lever halfway between the floor you're going past and the floor you need to go to; for example if you were on the main floor and you needed to go to the 4th floor you would go past floor 2 and once you got halfway between floor three and floor four you would switch the elevator off and the coastdown time would be enough to get you to the opening of the 4th floor and you would open the elevator by hand, it was all manually operated, no automation in this elevator. :thmbsp:

Unfortunately even though the elevator still worked they kept it blocked off because they were afraid of people abusing it and then getting hurt if it would of broke, because when they fixed up the building they converted the upper floors into public housing and they didn't want people to monkey around with the elevator and then have it break and people get injured and then risk getting sued, so basically its just for "historical" display purposes.

On the AC side, old elevators and "lifts" in Philadelphia and other cities that once used two phase (240 volts, 4 wires, 90 degrees out of phase). Later on, those same buildings were fitted with 3 phase to two-phase transformers, so the "old elevators" could still be used when overheads were upgraded to 3 phase, 120 degrees phase lag. It was not as simple as replacing a motor. :sigh:

90 degrees out of phase??? Never heard of that. Its probably 120, 208, and 240 three phase. That's 4 wire and is still in use today.

I worked many years at the Louis-Allis company, a firm that made specially and custom electric motors.
Every so-often, they would get an order for a two phase motor for replacement use. That firm was probably the only source! GE and Westinghouse couldn't furnish them. They had a special test console that could be switched for two phase operation.
I worked thirteen years in the test department and twenty years as a plant electrician.

When I was with South Carolina Electric & Gas, all we ever offered was 120, 208, 240 three phase. Industrial customers could get 460 three phase. The transformer configuration was Delta but we did have some Open Delta installations out there.
A 3 phase to 2 phase transformer??? If you needed 2 phases, why wouldn't you simply use 2 phases of the 3 phases that were available?
I've heard that you can tell when you're in a DC elevator. They jolt when they take off.

Open delta was used when the user only need a three phase source for small loads. Now, 120/208, "Y" configuration is common! Also, very common in apartment buildings, even if they don't have an elevator!
More later!

2 phase, with the phases at 90 degrees was widely used in the early days of electric power. Pockets of it remained in the UK certainly until the 1970s. I think the original Niagara hydro power scheme was 2 phase. A Scott transformer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott-T_transformer is used to connect 2ph and 3ph systems.

DC mains were still common in London in the 1960s. Lift machinery was a major use for DC. I think the printing presses in Fleet Street (the traditional home of newspapers in London) were supplied from DC mains. I can remember my father turning off the DC isolator in his factory building if he was last person out. It supplied the lift and probably nothing else.

I don't know if it's still there, but the lift at Alexandra Palace east tower (the original home of TV broadcasting in the UK) was pretty old when I last used it less than 10 years ago. Manually operated trellis "finger trap" gates. Some nice "clunk" sounds from the controller.